Mental Health in Art
Mental health is a growing topic in our society today. While our society is working to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, some struggle to fully understand what its like to struggle with mental illness. Those who have mental illness struggle with this misunderstanding of it but artists around the world have taken it upon themselves to try and convey their struggles through art. My goal through this project was to illustrate different feelings through physical forms of expression. I planned to create a gallery booklet with descriptions of the meanings within each piece.
This piece titled, ‘Overwhelmed’, takes place in an interior space where the subject is sitting with her head down in her arms. The stance of the subject shows someone who is curling up in emotional distress due to not being able to control the negativity that they are facing. I wanted to illustrate the feeling of being overwhelmed to the point where you feel like you have no control of anything.
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This piece titled, ‘In The Greenhouse’, is based from a dream that I had during the worst point of my life. During this time, it felt like I would never get better and I was in a negative mindset for so long. One night I had a mentally freeing dream where I was sitting with my cat in a glowing greenhouse surrounded by plants. This dream had been a short escape for me and helped me through the next day.
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This work by the name of ‘Dissociation, is a self-portrait in which I am resting my hand upon my face and blankly staring in a different direction. with this piece my hope was to show the feeling of exhaustion, giving up, and hopelessness. I included the blank expression and the head resting in hand to show to exhaustion from mental anguish.
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